It is time, at long last, to cancel that sly political elision “Europe” instead of “European Union”. It’s time to forget the shorthand, so lazy, which takes the name of a varied land mass of our neighbours and applies it unthinkingly to the political project run from Brussels.
Why? Because the confusion has driven us dotty. We have never left real Europe and can’t, any more than we can arrange a political exit from the planet. On Monday 19 May, Keir Starmer can begin to bring this nonsense to an end. We are making a historic turn, a proper handshake, with Europe; yet not with the EU, its grey and ponderous political blender.
I’m a child of the postwar period, for whom Europe was a vision of a better future, tantalising long before I ever first made it to the continent as a tousled 18-year-old. America was big cars, burgers, westerns, rock. But Europe was smouldering cinema, sexy songs and mouthwatering food. Europe was people like we Scots but eating better, living in better-looking towns and with better weather. Yes, America was Marvel. But Europe was Asterix.
There were always other Europes available, of course – football Europe, warmongering Europe, impoverished Europe. My idea of it, I fully admit, was limited – uproariously bourgeois; trivial; sensual. Yet I think it was not uncommon. It helps anatomise the pain of many so-called “Remoaners”, the defeated Cavaliers, after the Brexit referendum. There had been always those who went the whole hog and lived the life of snobby expatriates in the Dordogne, Andalusia or Tuscany – the clay-coloured, linen-wrapped Peter Mayle people. But far beyond those, for many normal middle-class British people , Europe was just a thoroughly nice place to be next to. We shared their values. So we memorised their verbs.
From this perspective, “leaving” was simply insane. Giving up the free and easy travel? Giving up the friendly German, Dutch or Belgian students and au pairs? The trade? Why? Because some dreary Brussels officials were making rules we barely notice? Because we’re supposed to love Westminster so much? You’re having us on, you… you… working-class people – aren’t you?
And personally, I have always suspected one of the reasons so many unheard working-class people voted for Brexit was precisely that they intuited how much their heedless oppressors loved all things European – they voted to steal the treat-shop from those who barely acknowledged their existence.
Now, one day, surely, history will judge the EU, the project of trying to obliterate national differences and create a centralised American-style superpower by twisting the screws of regulatory adjustments and commercial decrees, as noble – but politically insane. For us, there is no going back to that.
Meanwhile, this warm spring, three things mean we must think afresh about the living continent of Europe: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and our stuttering economy. In my youth, we were pulled towards Europe by shared values and appetites. Today, it’s by shared fear.
The job of the coming week is to ensure solidarity without merger – to get us back into a strong security and social relationship with our neighbours, without becoming entangled in the disruptive and disheartening mechanisms of the union itself. A year or two ago, informed people thought that impossible. But the invasion of Ukraine and the behaviour of President Trump in office has changed everything.
So the summit in Whitehall ought, unless something goes wrong, to give British industry access to a €150bn defence procurement fund; to strike an agreement on food and animal products that will allow much easier trade in both directions; to introduce a capped youth mobility scheme; and to roll forward the previous deal on fishing rights that would, in any case, have had to be renegotiated next year.
It opens the way to a deal on energy that would integrate British and European power systems – so that, for instance, a floating offshore windfarm could be used by continental grids and British ones depending on the fluctuations of demand.
The deal is not quite done yet. Things could go wrong. The French defence industry would like to keep British manufacturers at arm’s length if possible. And when the wind is in a certain direction, France can be just as mulishly protectionist as Trump’s America, if not more so.
There is plenty, too, to annoy the ideological right. Fresh from opposing an Indian trade deal that will bring some growth and a US one that should save the British car and steel industries, Conservative and Reform-backing politicians and papers will home in on the youth mobility scheme and the (very limited) role of the European Court in overseeing agricultural standards to cry “betrayal”.
We will have to wait to judge the political impact. The British public understands the Putin threat and the unreliability of the US as a long-term partner. They are aware of our profound growth problem: which is why agreements over oil within a market worth £800bn a year, as compared to trade with the US worth £300bn – first rule of trade, proximity matters – should be easy to sell by a self-confident government. But here lies the most important part of the politics. Month after dispiriting month, this Labour government has seemed essentially reactive, whacked by the markets, the Trump revolution, angry voters and growing internal dissent. Too often, it can come across as dazed. Here, at long last, it can own a big move, act rather than react. “This is the moment for the front foot, to really push what the national interest is,” says an insider.
Or, in other words, to pick a fight. The Prime Minister needs to be up for that. If he is prepared to aggressively sell this turn towards Europe – the preferred phrase is “New Partnership” – as something essential for our security, an act of statecraft both strategic and timely, voters will listen. If he comes out swinging, he can change the weather. This could be the most important moment of his premiership yet.
If details have been worked on by the relevant cabinet minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds, for many months. Government insiders are clear that, as the cross-channel relationship broadens and deepens, there is much more to achieve in helping trade in goods and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. In terms of domestic politics, this may help Labour defend its other flank against the Liberal Democrats.
From now on there will be annual summits. A more effective European-wide defence industry, a more integrated energy supply system and a friendlier approach to trade with the UK gives the real Europe, extending outside the EU, more resilience and more security. It doesn’t put everybody under one roof. But it helps turn geographical neighbours into good neighbours.
And that, faced with the military menace from the east, and the unpredictable trade belligerence from across the Atlantic, is a new deal not just worthwhile, but essential. Europe is us. Labour can’t avoid a fight, but if it’s going to fight, it might as well be something worth fighting for.
Whether you voted for or against Brexit, it’s obvious that this period has to end with a more supportive and friendlier mood than during the previous frantic, hysterical, pointlessly brittle nine years.
Enough of the exhaustion. Enough of the doublespeak. The Brexiteers always told us we’d have a good, grown-up relationship with the EU after it was all over. Well, in part thanks to the White House and in part thanks to the Kremlin, those two ugly stepsisters of today’s European folk tale, that moment has finally arrived.
[See also: The dangerous relationship]
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This article appears in the 14 May 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Why George Osborne still runs Britain